This is an example of a case where I wish I had more DoF. Not for the first time. This is 300mm f/8... not sure what the distance was. Presented shot includes sharpening. AF probably locked onto the back of the nearer cormorant, and you can see the DoF go back far enough for its head and also a bit wasted towards the camera. The 2nd cormorant is no longer in focus. I think it would be really nice if both were in focus here. I do have a get out of jail card though, as I have another shot taken at the same time where the 2nd one was in focus, so with some photoshop work I can composite them together. As this was my first time getting anywhere near a cormorant, I think excitement got the better of me.

This is also the first time I nearly got my feet wet taking a shot. Fortunately I had my wellies in the car so I could wade out into the shallow water and get a side on shot, since they away faced out to water it was hard to get a nice shot of them front on. They're also easily spooked I found out...

Oh, I'd classify these as urban wildlife. This is an artificial lake with a large population of mute swans and other waddles. The swans hang out by the car park, where I've seen people drive up, throw them food and drive off again. Yup, these waddles have delivery service!

In general, for single subjects I use the portrait saying "focus on the eyes" when I'm in doubt as to adequate DoF. I still get my share of beaks/noses in focus with the DoF failing to extend back to the eyes still...

+1 for butterflies. They have the advantage of being relatively large as far as bugs in general are concerned, so even without a macro lens you can get some good shots. Maintaining enough depth of field is the trick there, so quite often you'll be shooting small apertures, which means you need plenty of light, which can often mean using flash. If you get them side on, you can make do with less depth of field so can get away with greater aperture there.

On that note, I'm tempted to visit my local butterfly house, as I haven't given my new flash diffuser a workout yet...

That's a great addition Wolf. That's funny, I was just telling my wife this morning that I was overdue for a trip to our local butterfly conservatory.
I just got a flash this past Christmas and that might just be a great place to give it a go.

I'm in a hotel tonight so will probably be bored.. if that is the case I'm gonna add Marine Wildlife as well.. Will break it into 3 groups... Surface Wildlife, Underwater Wildlife and Aquarium Wildlife.

I can cover the first group but will have nothing to say about the other two as I have never experienced it in any form so hopefully someone will add some material to that.

My original post may well be an expanding post for the next week or so as I think of more things.. I did add one piece of the marine wildlife puzzel tonight right after Insects. It turned out being a lot longer than expected but I do think it is full of helpful hints and things to keep in mind... again.. as always...plz add anything I may have missed.

One of my other goals for the original post is to add pictures showing some examples of what I am talking about but that will need to wait a bit as I'm bogged down with several projects at this time as well as what is considered "work".

Well... I have added pictures to my original post... which due to its size has now become two posts. Popo has graciously moved his info for zoos down to his next post so the 2 posts of mine will flow into one another. I've also added quite a few little bits and pieces throughout both posts so it may be worth a re-read for those interested. I think that this will be it though for the most part except maybe a blurb here and there.

Hope you all enjoy it and hope it helps a few of you on your next outing.

Lastly.. feel free to add anything you feel I may have missed... as said previously some insight regarding underwater photography as well as shooting at aquariums would be great

awesome, this is getting better all the time. Love the pics you have added.

Just had a few thoughts on paying attention to wind, often find that birds will take off into wind and if you position yourself to keep the sun behind you gives you great potential for great light. Works well here on westerly winds and sunsets.

I guess checking for wind direction is part of the technique for approaching wildlife in general, its something you properly do naturally.

LOL max you got me thinking again about obvious things I may have missed and the most obvious for me right now where I live is what unique elements winter conditions bring to photography so I added a few paragraphs on that as well as a few new pics...

Also added a really short blurb at the end about forgotten wildlife and added some pics for it.

I think kpr might be right.. I may have to remove the word "basic" from the title.

After a few beers with a friend last night who was passing through town and is also a photographer and has done underwater photography I added a section on underwater photography. It is short but it does have a lot of relevent information in it much of which is common sense but much of which never would have crossed my mind without having it brought to light by someone else.